Advertisement

Celtic (adj.)

also Keltic, 1650s, in archaeology and history, "pertaining to the (ancient) Celts," from French Celtique or Latin Celticus "pertaining to the Celts" (see Celt). In reference to the language group including Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, etc., from 1707. Of modern peoples or their other qualities, by mid-19c. The Boston basketball team was founded 1946. Celtic twilight is from Yeats's name for his collection of adapted Irish folk tales (1893).

Entries related to Celtic

celt (n.)

"stone chisel," 1715, according to OED from a Latin ghost word (apparently a mistake of certe) in Job xix.24 in Vulgate: "stylo ferreo, et plumbi lamina, vel celte sculpantur in silice;" translated, probably correctly, in KJV as, "That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever." But assumed by others to be a genuine carving tool, partly because it was in the Bible, and thereafter adapted by archaeologists as a name for a class of prehistoric implements.

Others are reading

Advertisement
Advertisement
Definitions of Celtic
1
Celtic (n.)
a branch of the Indo-European languages that (judging from inscriptions and place names) was spread widely over Europe in the pre-Christian era;
Synonyms: Celtic language
2
Celtic (adj.)
relating to or characteristic of the Celts;
Synonyms: Gaelic
From wordnet.princeton.edu

Dictionary entries near Celtic

cellulose

Celsius

celt

Celt

Celt-Iberian

Celtic

cement

cementation

cemetery

cenacle

-cene

© 2001-2021 Douglas Harper